Enhanced Community Care

Enhanced Community Care (ECC) programme - care closer to home

The HSE’s Enhanced Community Care (ECC) programme is enhancing and increasing community health services and reducing pressure on hospital services. This means more services closer to where people live. Especially for older people and people with chronic disease. 

The programme helps health and social care services to:

• manage care at a local level
• support the transition from hospitals to the community

ECC is a €240 million investment in community health services that is part of the Sláintecare programme.

ECC Conference 2022

Read about the national ECC Conference held in Dublin Castle in September 2022. Watch a full conference recording, and download or read presentations from expert clinicians and teams.

Progress

The rollout of ECC is ongoing. Up to December 2022 the programme has delivered:

• 94 of 96 Community Healthcare Networks
• 21 of 30 Community Specialist Teams for older people
• 21 of 30 Community Specialist Teams for chronic disease
• 21 Community Intervention Teams
• 2,400 additional staff
• Over 253,000 scans completed via the GP diagnostics programme

The programme expects to achieve a 20% reduction in:

• people aged over 75 admitted to emergency departments (in hospitals with Community Specialist Teams for older people)
• non-elective admissions for many chronic conditions

Community Healthcare Networks (CHN)

CHNs deliver primary healthcare services across Ireland. Each network serves a population of about 50,000 people.  They improve the experience of using these services by:

• supporting people to live more independently in the community
• coordinating and integrating services to meet health needs
• supporting collaborative working to provide person-centred care
• ensuring access to services nationwide at the right time

The ECC programme will also develop a volunteer model with Alone. This will help to coordinate community and voluntary supports in each CHN. 

Find out more about CHNs.

Community Specialist Teams for older people

Community Specialist Teams provide support and services based on the needs and choices of older people. Older people have access to a range of clinics and services, such as: 

• rapid access clinics
• falls and frailty clinics
• memory assessments
• nurse-led clinics 
• therapy-led clinics

Each team serves a population of about 150,000 people.

Community Specialist Teams for chronic disease

Community Specialist Teams for chronic disease help people to understand and manage their illness. This includes access to:

• diagnostics
• GP services
• specialist supports in the community

Community Intervention Teams (CIT)

CITs provide care to patients with a sudden illness who require enhanced services/acute intervention for a short period of time.

Jobs

You can search for jobs in your area. Or contact your local Community Healthcare Organisation (CHO) for more information about jobs near you.

Stories

Read stories from people who use our services and staff on how we are bringing care closer to people’s homes:

1. New Sligo Care Hub improves integrated care
2. Kerry service keeps older people safely in own homes
3. New Centre supporting older people in Waterford
4. Sally happy to be well at home via Cork hub
5. Linda praises her mum’s dementia care
6. Specialist local services mean patients avoid hospital visits
7. Celine delighted at local service to manage asthma
8. “Fantastic service” helps Paddy recover at home